Okay! I'm puttting $800 ($300 from myself) towards a new computer! Finally... anyways, here's what I've chosen.

Already have: (ARRIVED!!)
Thermaltake Purepower 500-watt ATX12V PSU ($60-$20 MIR=$40)
Scythe "Infinity" SCINF-1000 heatsink tower with silent 12CM fan ($58-$20 IR=$38)

Cost on credit card: $109

Intel Pentium "Dual-Core" E2140 1.6GHz ($75)
Abit IP35-E motherboard, ($120-$40 MIR=$80)

Cost on credit card: $202

To be ordered:
Transcend aXeRAM 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 CL4 (4-4-4-12) ($75)
Sapphire Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB GDDR3 ($100)
Western Digitial Caviar SE16 320GB SATA ($75)
Asus 18x DVD Burner w/ Lightscribe, 14x DVD-RAM ($33)
Mitsumi 3.5" Floppy and Memory Card Reader ($19)
XClio 188A Black ATX Mid-Tower case ($50)
Arctic Silver Ceramique (1cc) Thermal Grease ($5)
Arctic Silver Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier ($6)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit OEM ($112)

Cost of above components (w/ shipping): $502

I'll be ordering some more shortly--at least the motherboard by the 15th of this month, not to mention everything else that I'll need soon there after.

In short, I'm going to have a nice computer again! And, I can overclock!

I'd personally get a seperate CPU cooler too, if you want to overclock the PC.

Nice pc!

$800 does go a long way.

No comments really, just nice system and good luck with it.

Still changing it up a little...

Anyways--I have the separate CPU cooler already--as well as the power supply. They both arrived today.

Stuff I changed... I dropped the Mitsumi Floppy & Memory Card Reader, for now, for an E2180. I'll look at putting the floppy/mcr back in if I find that the E2160 would be just the same. Other thing I might change is to go for the 64-bit variation of Windows Vista. I'm not exactly sure--but I'm about 55/45 for 32-bit/64-bit.

EDIT: I can say for sure--I'm very happy with both the new PSU and the new HSF. I'll be looking forward to using them in this new build. I've seen many people get to 3.2GHz on E2160s, and heard many people have joined the 100% Overclock Club with E2140s.

very nice!!! is that 800 USD? or pounds? cause its a bit confusing. and whats the 100% overclock club? ur assembling them urself of course right? and did u buy from newegg?

btw: whats software r u using to overclock? or no overclock?

$800 USD. 100% overclock club is when you double the running speed of your processor while being stable. I'm assembling myself--thus I've ordered some pretty good quality stuff (top-of-the-line processor cooling tower with silent 12cm fan and a nice tier-3 power supply) already, and I'm going to be getting the new motherboard by the 15th (don't know when I'll get everything else). I'm not using software to overclock--I will do it the correct way (though BIOS). With any luck, I'll go to at least 3.2GHz. If I don't get a good chip (meaning it can't go above 3.2GHz at 1.525V core), I'll probably RMA it for another. I'm going to at least 3.2GHz over winter.

whats RMA? so dual core to 3.2GHz each core or total for both? btw what are u using this computer for? gaming? and 12 cn fan is the inifity?

rate how good ur computer performance is on a rate of 1 to 10. when u get it can u post a CPU Z?

RMA means I'll return to the manufacturer for another processor or a refund. Anyways--convince them it wasn't up to par on the phone and they'll drop the 15% restocking fee too. Dual core to 3.2GHz each core. I'll use it for gaming, 3D modeling, and some Photoshop. The 12CM fan is on the Infinity, there's also a 25CM case fan--I won't be putting in another fan as the 25CM fan will make enough air move in the first place.

On 1 to 10 (1 being gaming on a PII 400 and 64MB PC-100 RAM and with ATI Rage 3D Pro, oh and 10 being gaming on a core 2 extreme QX6850 OC'ed to 4GHz with 8GB of DDR2 1066 and two 8800 Ultras), I'd say it's about a 9. It'll be about equivalent to a Core 2 Extreme X6800 for processing power--more for some things, less for others. It's also got a fairly mid-range card, which should be more then enough graphics power for the next 2 years. So yeah, about a 9 for a half the cost of a similarly-performing stock system. Oh, and I'll be sure to come around every forum I frequent to brag about it!

I forgot to add that, those specs look good.

And if you have the patience, you can wait for Intel's new CPU line and grab a Q6600 really cheap. But that's, what? Half a year from now?

wats the new line? and do u have to have warenty for that RMA thing? what was ur old PC? P2 from the rating u gave?

I'm actually getting this money as a sort of advance... I'm going to be dead bored most of this year--public school is damn easy (I just came from basically an elite private school, but left because we can't afford it). The normal budget for a college computer is $1200-$1500 at the end of Senior year... the $500 my mom is contributing is from said college computer. Basiaclly, since my computer already is nearing 5 years old (had it since 7th grade), I'm getting that advance. With a little bit of luck and a bit of good grades (90+s in everything), I'll be leaving for college in 2008 (a year early). I'm making the money she'll contribute to the best use as I possibly can for a computer. In a year or so, I'll upgrade (toss in a new processor, add more RAM, better graphics card, possibly a new PSU, and probably another hard drive). By then, the Q6600 should be beyond the G0 stepping (or a similar Penryn quad-core for about the same (the reason I went for P35 over nForce 600i)), RAM should be even more dirt-cheap for DDR2, DX10.1 will be standard on all new cards (and hopefully midrange cards will have performance fit the price better), and I'll be able to get everything at an even more kick-arsch price.

I'll post a CPU-Z validation, a screenshot of Prime95 (2 instances) passed for 12 hours, as well as some benchmark results (BF2, FS2O w/ AdvMedia VPs, Lame MP3, TMPEG 3.0 Express, WinRAR, Cinebench, PCMark05, 3DMark06, Fritz 9 Chess Benchmark, Vista Experience benchmarketing score)

EDIT: The new line is going to be based on the 45nm High-K manufacturing process--Penryn for mobile, Wolfdale for dual-core, and Yorkfield for quad-core. All will feature SSE4 (faster encoding in many cases), have about a 5% better clock-for-clock performance, and will be clocked (at maximum at time of launch) 11.1% faster then today's fastest (about 17% faster). Not to mention lower TDP, less power drawn, less voltage required, AND a higher possible overclock. Most of that's not really proven yet, but if High-K lives up to its name, it will all come out in early Penryn benchmarks (there are already official benchmarks floating around--all looks good for Penryn).

are u spending money for office products?? like windows office 2007? and nero and stuff to burn data discs with? u cant do much with just a vista. why dont u get a job ? or a scholar ship if ur so smart?

No, I'm not--I have 2 more installations of Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher. I'll use one on the Vista machine--I've already looked at Office 2007, and frankly it looks and feels like c**p. Next--I already have Nero Express and some other stuff--I don't need to buy it. Finally--there are very few jobs around. I'm next to a lower-class city and many of those low-class people get placed in there because they're below the poverty line. It's nearly impossible to get into a few places around where I live, and the others are too far away. It's a catch-22... you need a job to make money to afford insurance for a car to get you to your job to make money to... well, you get the idea. Scholarship? Won't quite work... I'm at public school now and I'm going to college a year early if all works as it should... this will be a sort of going-away-to-college gift, meaning I'll have $700-$1000 to spend to upgrade this system.

also if ur good at gaming or stuff u should go to tournaments, dont colleges offer u a laptop that u can buy for not a lot of money?

Those laptops suck--I've seen more ripoffs there then at CompUSA. Anyways--I don't know of a particularly popular LAN party group in my area. If there was, I might go with this new rig (be a little bit afraid of the 1kg heatsink tower breaking, but if it's on its side it shouldn't be a problem).

go to toronto for gaming tournaments, lots of people there or sweden dreamhack party which is good. the pure pwnage people are in toronto u could play them for stuff. also WSVG and other tournaments. ur rig would be okay there cause most people have intel core 2 duo extreme, 8GB ram, 2 nvidia geforce 8800 GTX ultras 768mb and people have alienware and intel sponsor ship which is pretty good cause u get free computers to game on. i wanna see the before and after cpu z! ur computer is air cooled right?

I don't think people would use Core 2 Duo processors in combination with 8GB of RAM and 2 Nvidia GTX Ultras.

And to be honest, Alienwares are bad gaming computers for what they cost. I can assemble a rig that beats any Alienware single-handedly if I was to spend the same amount of money on both.

why not? ive seen it work.

and if u get a sponsor its FREE! and basiclly u get a new computer whenever u go to a tournament with a sponsor. and u have to wear there t shirts/ gear.

I'd imagine you'd use a Core 2 Quad with that kind of hardware.

well intel core 2 duo extreme or core 2 quad, quad aren't that developed for gaming so not much people use them but the option is available i think.

Clock-for-clock, quad-core processors are better then dual-core processors in gaming. A 3GHz quad-core (Q6600 overclock to 3GHz with FSB1333) will outrun a 3GHz dual-core (E6850 at a standard clock of 3GHz and FSB1333). Beyond 3GHz it gets very interesting--though quad-cores are more limited for overclocking, it's about a 50/50 chance of coming ahead of a higher clocked dual-core chip in games. Even single-threaded and dual-threaded games... it wins because it has double the usable cache and it can offload system tasks to the other cores.

EDIT: With the kind of hardware I'm getting, I'm looking at picking up a Q6600 for cheap in 12 months, as well as at least 2GB more DDR2 800 CL4, and a better graphics card such as the future GeForce 8900GS (to overclock that to top-speed). That's the reason I choose a P35 motherboard (for support for Penryn-based) of this particular model (IP35-E's are pretty well known for quad-core overclocking on a budget).

how do u know about geforce 8900? any rumor sites going around? links would be good.

Well, from what I have heard and what I have remembered, it'll be running DX10.1 and be a nice increase in the current 8800GTX performance, plus support OpenGL 2.1 and run cooler. If that all comes true (I'm not so sure about DX10.1, and no I'm not referring to the G92 mid-range part, and I think OGL2.1 is already supported by DX10 cards), it'll be an excellent upgrade. Even a DX10.1 card based on G92 (which I've heard will come to be called GeForce 8700GT and be more like the old rumored GeForce 8600 Ultra then what we've seen so far) would be a nice upgrade--if the entire DX10 fiasco dies down and the $100 DX10 parts in today are crap in a year. Whatever--I'll still try to reuse everything I'm upgrading for something else, like a LAN party rig.

EDIT: Some things even I won't reveal my sources on. Besides--they appear and disappear at random. Best you don't keep you hopes up.

EDIT 2: And anyone who has been around the hardware community for the past 2 years would know that there will be a GeForce 8900, just like there was a 7900. Same with Radeons... xN900XT is the basic "high-end" design, often launched with an XTX (unofficially launched with 1GB GDDR4, or so it's thought of but I don't buy it (it's just a HD2900XT with 1GB of RAM instead of 512MB)). After that, a new core revision making for the n950's, usually GT, Pro, XT, and XTX in order of power.

Why a floppy?

It has a memory card reader too, so I imagine Bob-sama is getting it for mainly the memory card reader. I might be wrong though.

Yeah--I might drop it. I would like a memory card reader and I might need a floppy for flashing the BIOS. Right now, I'm thinking of grabbing an E2140 (1.6GHz) and overclocking to 3.2GHz (100%) and grabbing the mcr/flopppy.

Don't overclock straight away. I could overclock my laptop to atleast 2.4GHz, but it runs fine as it is, which is why I don't overclock it. If you feel that 1.6GHz underdoes you, then is the time to start overclocking.

(In my opinion, anyways.)

I'm going to go strait out and overclock--no reason not to. Besides--I'm going to have the chip for about a year, so I'd like to make it the best $75 I have spent thus far.



Order #2 placed!

Intel Pentium "Dual-Core" E2140 1.6GHz, $75
Abit IP35-E motherboard, $120

Shipping, $7
Total, $202

EDIT: Thank you Dani ! I didn't notice I double-posted until after...

uhh i would stay away from pentium D too old for me dunno u overclockers like old technology probably cause more people have tried overclocking it. i thought u ordered the whole thing already in 1 cart! XD my bad i thought u just bought everything in 1 package. whats this benfit of shipping in 2s? first psu and heatsink now CPU and motherboard. why dont u buy it together. i dont think u save much money from this. where is the newegg warehouse anyway?

It is a new processor--it's not the old NetBurst dual-cores, it's a new Core dual-core, just branded to be lowest-end dual-core, and thus still under the recognizable "Pentium" name. It isn't the same as any Pentium D 800 or 900 series, it's basically the low-end Core 2 Duo E4300/E4400/E4500's.

The closest warehouse to me is in New Jersey--they shipped the heatsink and power supply to me in 2 business days from order (ordered on the 10th, arrived on the 12th).

I didn't buy everything in the same cart, but the first order was because the PSU's last MIR day and the heatsink was on $20 instant special (I didn't know how long it would be on that rebate--it's a $60 heatsink I got for $40). The second order was on occasion of the motherboard's last MIR day and the processor had free shipping, so I got both that same time for ~$200.

I bought 'em seperately because I couldn't buy them together, so seperately did the job. I'm waiting to be able to order the graphics card, memory, hard drive, optical drive, case, floppy/mcr reader, and some AS-C and AS-SCP.

oh i see. cant wait for that CPU Z. so that pentium D is actually a low end Core 2 Duo? wow! when do u think ur going to have all the parts by?

I'll have the parts by Tuesday if all goes well. Anyways--I don't have enough parts to start the actual build--remember I still need a case, memory, graphics card, hard drive, optical drive, floppy drive/MCR, ASCeramique, ASCleaner, and OS. Those'll come a bit later, so I'll have benchmarks for what I'm doing later. Minimum of one week, maximum of one month. This has been the most research I've done in a long time!

EDIT: And yes, Pentium Dual-Core E21x0 (not Pentium D 8xx or Pentium D 9xx) are basically low-end Core 2 Duos.

so 469$ for parts and 800-469=331 worth of shipping! wow thats a lot.

$780 for the parts on my calculation.

he just said so 469 without shipping so i guess 469 for parts and the rest for shipping? well i added it up too ya i think he might have wrote it wrong. also ur artic silver is 1cc? what does that mean?and ur sig says u have the pentium D and the motherboard cause there in green, better update ur post. what does OEM windows mean? shouldn't u be getting arctic silver 5 cause ur overclocking?

OEM versions of an operating system are technically the same as regular OSes, but they're a lot cheaper. OEM can only be installed once, you have no support from Microsoft (except for updates, etc.). I also beleive that they may only be installed by the PC's assembler, but I'm not 100% sure.

You have it a bit wrong. First off, the Arctic Silver Ceramique (1cc) Thermal Grease means that I'm buying the amount of 1cc (3.5g) of Arctic Silver Ceramique. It's just an amount--to differentiate between the larger and the smaller tubes of the product.

The total for the parts is going to be about $780.

As for OEM, I'm buying an OEM license of Windows Vista because it's perfectly legal to do so. When I get the hard drive, I'll be picking up the OS (as it's one of the few permanent components that I'm allowed to buy Windows OEM with). It's half the price and it's the exact same software, except I can only do a fresh installation. Now, that doesn't bother me at all because I don't have an OS for this system, and starting new is always best.

u should edit ur post cause its a bit messed change it to 780. do u have tech support like calling for windows OEM?

shouldn't u be getting arctic silver 5 for overclocking?

The post is not wrong.



Them three figures equal $780.

Actually looking over my NewEgg list, it's a little bit more with shipping. When I wrote that I didn't factor in the shipping (I just looked at subtotal). I fixed it now, sorry I didn't notice till I looked in the NewEgg cart. $27 shipping is what I forgot to add. The total spent will actually be about $813.

Motherboard and processor have arrived! Woo-hoo! I got them apart, then made sure the heatsink fits the motherboard... and it does! I'll mount it all together when I get RAM and a graphics card.

shouldn't u have known the heatsink fits the motherboard before you bought it? that was a risk

[u double posted ]

For the double-post--it's been over 48 hours. Anyways--yes I took a risk and ordered them before I knew they'd fit. Luckily, they both do! Looking again at the board and the case, the tower should also fit (since the socket's pretty high).

I'm just really happy the board and heatsink fit--I was worried about clearance of the northbridge and MOSFET. It fits in and has no problems with standard-height RAM. Only thing is I have to have the 12CM fan a little bit higher on the tower--still, it's under the copper caps.

u mean u can double post in 48 hours? MOSFET? what and where is that? copper caps? where? i dont get ur post of the 12 cm fan. well good for you. is it like just over the socket like long but like in the standard box stock cooler shape or does it like hang over the sides of the socket? does it hang over the ram? are you latching it to the case just in case it breaks ur motherboard? and what do u latch it with the heatsink is hot so tape doesn't work.

I would have done a lot of things differently. I don't like it that you're buying all your part off newegg. Places like newegg and tigerdirect are great for comparing the specs of computer parts, but ebay is the place to buy them. Used parts work just as well as new ones, but used parts are so much cheaper. You could use the money saved on a better video card and name brand parts. I've never heard of the company "Transcend".



I would also buy the Thermal compound later on. Most of the time companies put some in the CPU & Heat Sink box. I also would have downloaded my OS, and that's a $112 savings.

I'm not sure if you're allowed doubleposts after 48 hours--that's a general rule I go by as some forums I go to allow it within 12 hours, and others within 24 hours, and still others within 36-48 hours. Whatever.

Technically MOSFET means "metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor", see the following picture



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ^^^^^^^^^ MOSFET Heatsink (the blue heatsink)

What I mean is I have to have the 12CM fan about halfway up on the heatsink tower itself--I want it 1mm off the northbridge heatsink. It's a huge thing that hangs over a lot of the board... I was lucky it fit as it's tall enough off the board (much shorter and it wouldn't fit over the MOSFET heatsink). I'm going to have it hang off the motherboard--no need to really sling it, unless I was using more fans on it. I could do it with string, however, and string it over the caps on the copper heat pipes.

people on ebay can scam u. also the thermal compound they give you is like thermal grease and its cheap and bad. also the physical disc could be good for repairing the OS or booting off of the disc if u have 1 partition.

I only go legal--I won't download an OS though I already have a link to DL WinXP MCE 2005. Anyways--NewEgg is great--they're generally among the cheapest and I actually save money by shipping--instead of ordering 10-13 items off of 10-13 sites, I'll stick to a few orders off of one site. It's just simpler. eBay isn't to be trusted in my book. The compound I got with my Infinity was some silicon stuff--it looked like goop so I'd prefer to have some quality stuff I can use 5+ times (ASCeramique). I have both retail CPU and after-market heatsink--I got both because I wasn't sure if the Infinity would fit. Besides--when I looked, TigerDirect's OEM E2140 was $80, and NewEgg's Retail E2140 was $75.

how can u get windows XP 2005? its not for sale at microsoft market place. all they have is vista anyways i dont think ebay is good cause its like a person shipping to u and they could scam u. i doubt newegg would scam you and if u did u could just call or send a inquiry instead of hunting down someone on ebay.

Forget I mentioned it--technically it's illegal and I disregard most illegal or shady means of acquiring software. Anyways--back to stuff I didn't address on Bub's post...
I wouldn't get a previous-generation graphics card unless it's truely a great deal. A Raptor is a waste of money. A second DVD drive is repetitive--I already have an external DVD drive. Also, writing to Nero's image-maker works too. Other then that, I don't agree with illegal means of obtaining OS's.